To want to share my shock at this?

[GardenPart]

6 months ago - me and my siblings sold our childhood home for £500,000.

My parents bought the house when they got married in the 60s.

Both parents dead now, so estate sorted out between us.

We sold the house to an experienced developer.

My siblings and I have moved out of our home town but my daughter has moved into a flat about a mile away from our childhood home. Anyway - 2 days ago my daughter was visiting me and out of curiosity scrolling through her phone at local property sites and suddenly called me over -

anyway - to my surprise my childhood home was on the ‘for sale’ section - I was so shocked my initial thought was that it was the house next door to my parents that was for sale which looked identical from the outside. I honestly thought the developer could not possibly have done the property up so quickly ! But no, it was our old property.

‘I’m surprised about 2 things basically :

1. The speed it took them to develop and modernise many - or even most aspects of the property - it was actually on the market last month so that meant it took them 5 months. Don’t get me wrong - I know we sold it to an experienced developer - who wouldn’t waste any time and would be very efficient with the progress of the property - but even so !! 5 months? I thought it would take them at least a year.

1. The price. We sold it for £500000 6 months ago - it’s now on the market for £800000 - a 60.% mark up! If it was resold I expected the selling price to be circa £650k and only around £700k at the very most.

if it sells for the £800k asking price that’ll be the second most expensive sale ever in the street - this is surprising as it’s a semi detached house and the most expensive went for £820k 8 years ago - but detached.

The pics of the house look absolutely lovely - they’ve modernised it to a great standard - bathrooms, toilet, kitchen looks gorgeous and my goodness it needed loads of attention - my mum let the house go to seed after my Dad died - it was too big for her living there alone - it was a lot for a young adult in prime health to manage alone let alone an 89 year old !! They’ve also kept some of the lovely original features. It’s so nice to see our old childhood home so loved and modernised and less tired looking so I tip my hat to the developer and really glad we sold to him - but -

AIBU to be surprised by the speed of the turn around and the amount of the price elevation on the property? Or is this normal ?

No. The developer might have had their team ready to go from day one and it’s a formula doing up houses (I used to flip them myself, albeit much lower price wise). I had my favoured suppliers and could get materials in quickly. Contacts at the local planning office - that sort of thing helps speed things along. So the five months doesn’t surprise me. Not does the price. Stamp duty alone would have cost the developer £40k. And easily spent £100k doing it up. The fact a detached sold for £820k EIGHT years ago sets precedent. I often broke the highest price on the streets my houses were on. Because I did my houses up to a high standard - not the fix it up cheap a la Homes Under the Hammer. I included washing machines, dishwashers all integrated. I landscaped the gardens, put in blinds and furnished the place. I put in nice accessories. I wasn’t fooling anyone that people actually lived there but it sold a lifestyle.

AIBU to be surprised by the speed of the turn around
Have you never heard the phrase "time is money"? The longer it takes, the more any profit made is eroded away by interest charges.

We used to do that sort of development. So, you have an extra five percent on top of the usual stamp duty before you start. You have lots of hidden costs too…council fees, legal estate agent conforming with all the regulations. Honestly most jobs made some profit but nothing like it looks on paper. We had to stop because it became too hard to make any profit in London / outer London.

Five months is easy if you've got the tradespeople and the cash - both of which a decent developer will. They're not doing the kitchen, the moving onto the bathroom, then moving onto some decorating - they're doing several jobs simultaneously.

They will have spent a lot of money doing it up to that standard and theres no guarantee it will fetch the asking price so it’s not that astonishing. It must be strange though lovely to see it like that. Hope it goes to a good home, as it were.

YABU to be surprised at the speed - five months is not that quick at all, even if it needed major structural work: new roof, full rewire etc. Professional developers with dedicated teams of tradespeople can work incredibly quickly in an empty property. It's not at all comparable to the timescales of a renovation when the owners are living there, and when you have to wait for decent tradespeople to be available.

We experienced similar with our childhood home, only ours was repossessed.
Someone bought it for a song, did it up beautifully and made it worth loads more.
I was mostly happy to see that our family home, despite all our happy memories, was in a very poor state and that someone put a lot of love and care back into it.

You sold it for 500k they probably spent at least 100k on it.
Probably bought it in to line with other properties locally.
They say buy the worst house on the best street , that’s what they’ve done.

Just because it's on the market for that price doesn't mean it will sell at that price.

But to be honest, if you sold a property that was in poor condition and needed renovating for half a million pounds, it doesn't particularly surprise me that the same property could be marketed at such a high price post renovation.

The bungalow next to me is currently undergoing a redevelopment. The previous owner moved out seven weeks ago and the bungalow looks almost completed, new roof, large extension and most interior walls initially removed - according to my rather nosy window cleaner!

Literally within an hour of my neighbour leaving, two huge skips and a porta loo turned up and scaffolding was being built. The builders arrived that same day and started filling the skips with rubble before the end of the day. The team worked in the dark using torches on their helmets and started work at 7 am, doing 12 hour days even over the weekends. They were very quiet though, no radios, no loud talking although obviously there was some noise from machinery.

The main inconvenience has been the parking of vans in our street although the foreman seems to watch out and get them moved if they are a nuisance for the neighbours - some elderly with carers, gardeners, cleaners etc.

So house can be turned around very quickly if the developer has a team of workers ready to get going. I reckon the bungalow will be on the market in a couple of weeks.

There’s a house near me that took about 6 months to be renovated. They striped it right back and everything is brand new. I have no doubt the developer made a huge profit but they also spent a lot on it.

This has just reminded my of a friend who saw her old house was on the market and was most miffed that the people who bought it from her redecorated. She said she didn’t particularly like the colours of the walls when she moved in but got used to it 😂

Some people put uplift clauses in sales contracts to share in profits if they know they are selling a renovation project

Depends where you live. Round my way most family homes are sold within days

People have upgraded houses much quicker and sold for much bigger profits over the last 20 or so years, the only thing I'm surprised with is that people are still managing to do this as the profits have become much smaller

Yes, good point

That's why they're called developers. My sister-in-law's house sold for £302,000. Completely unmodernised big 1930s semi. The buyers took every interior wall back to brick, complete rewire, replumb, new heating system, replaced every door, every window, some of the floors, 2 new bathrooms, a big wraparound extension incorporating a kitchen/diner, and a freestanding garage and new driveway. It sold the day it went on the market for £525,000. They made a fabulous job of it, took about 6 months. I couldn't have directed such a project, could you?

There's a 2 bed bungalow on my lane which was bought by a developer for c.£250k - needed a lot of work. He started at the end of Jan, ripped out the front garden and hedgerow which is going to be parking, and took the roof off, which took about two days for the two. He's turning it into a five bed house including balcony and 5 en suites, (isn't much left of the garden because he's built further back). He's finished with the house, and is now just fitting it out which will probably take another month. It's on for £800k with the draft layout only.

He's had people here every single day of the week since the hedgerow was ripped out end of Jan, including weekends and bank hols. They have started work from 0610 on some days. For the first two months there were four vans, one car and one motorbike here (so huge issues with parking!) plus deliveries several times a day every day. He's very greedy, and arrogant, and time is money - he wants it finished, sold, and the money in the bank so that he can start on the next one.

That’s very true

No I definitely couldn’t !!!!!

A house near me sold for a million. It was an HMO and in a disgusting state. The developers took a while (just under a year) but turned it into 3 lovely flats which sold for about £750k each.

Quick turnaround is probably down to having decent trades 'on hand' who want repeat business from the developer = high spec + high cost + all hands on deck = (hopefully) premium price and more profit. Good for them, it is impressive.

He bought to do up and re sell, of course time is of the essence and has to be done quickly.

That sounds about right. Property developers have a skill not everyone has: to be able to size up an old property, have a good idea how much a new roof/rewire/bathroom/kitchen/redecoration/re-carpet etc etc; how long it’d take and know who their subbies are and their availability. This is entirely how they make their money!

We bought a trashed out house owned by two brothers it had been on the market for six months with no offers it cost 500,000 four months later was back on the market totally sprucedand sold in the first week for 750,000.

Wow I did not realise this was a thing !!